


The King's Grand Tour

by cyberstevie, shoujokakumei



Series: That Soft and Fluffy Au Where Wednesday and Lydia are Girlfrienss [3]
Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King, IT - Stephen King
Genre: Gen, Pennywise is transphobic, Tags to be added, Wednesday isn't in this one sorry folks, not beetlebabes, slight body horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22263076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyberstevie/pseuds/cyberstevie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoujokakumei/pseuds/shoujokakumei
Summary: In which Maine is apparently the most haunted place in the world
Relationships: Charles Deetz/Delia Deetz
Series: That Soft and Fluffy Au Where Wednesday and Lydia are Girlfrienss [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535480
Comments: 16
Kudos: 85





	The King's Grand Tour

**Author's Note:**

> Oof, we're sorry this took so long!
> 
> Thrown into the series because it takes place in the same universe, about two years from the first chapter, but is mostly stand alone other than a few callbacks. Lydia is 17 and 5'11 and Beej is very distressed about her being taller than him.
> 
> It taking place so much later is why Charles is fine being stuck in a car with a demon for eight hours.
> 
> Not really any shipping in this one. Adam and Barbara are here! Just only at the beginning and end chapter, thus being untagged. More tags to be added along with updates, and all that.
> 
> Enjoy!

"Are you two sure you don't want to come along?" Lydia asked, strapping on her boots. "We can bring the stuff, it'd be no problem, really."

"No, it's okay, really! We'll have our own little staycation!" Barbara said brightly.

"Besides," Adam added, "trying to keep the candles burning safely in a car for so long doesn't sound very fun."

Lydia nodded, finishing the last buckle and standing up, giving the two ghosts a quick hug before grabbing her suitcase. "Beej, come on, we're- what are you wearing?"

"My vacation outfit," the demon in question answered. What he was wearing was a large straw hat, heart shaped sunglasses, a neon pink floral print shirt, completing the look with flippers and a duck floatie, and red shorts that Lydia knew read **_GEUSEY_ ** on the back. He kept a straight face, unlike Lydia and the Maitlands.

"We're going to Maine," Lydia managed.

"Oh yeah, the Hawaii movie never got made, huh?"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Well then come on, change back to normal, Dad and Delia are waiting for us." She turned to the ghosts, "Have fun haunting the house, love you bye!" And jaunted out the door.

Beetlejuice paused before following her. "You guys set timers, right?"

Barbara and Adam looked at each other, puzzled. "What for?" Barbara asked.

"Remember when you first died and it was just the three of us and time went all weird ? That'll happen again without the breathers around." He looked behind them, at the cat sitting on the couch, directing his speech more towards the cat than the Maitlands, "and even though SHE'S A BASTARD, you two wouldn't want to forget to feed her, right?"

They looked from Princess to Beetlejuice and back as he yelled at the animal. "We'll, uh, definitely make sure to do that," Adam said. 

"Have fun, bye."

"No goodbye kiss?" Beetlejuice asked as they started to close the door. Barbara and Adam both gave him a Look. "Hey, hey, I asked! I asked," he said defensively holding up his hands.

"Goodbye, Lawrence," Adam said, and Barbara shut the door.

"Oh, by the way, I won the bet," Barbara said smugly as she grabbed an alarm clock from the mantle, opening its back. “His leg hair _is_ green, check and mate.”

"Wh--" Adam started, then made a noise of frustration, "Darnit! Why were you even looking?"

~~~

"Bleh, I don't understand why I have to come in the car anyway," Beetlejuice complained as he caught up with Lydia, clothing fading back into his striped ensemble, duck floatie quacking pathetically as it left existence.

"Cause I don't know if I'll be able to find a safe place to summon you, and last time we tried to summon you in an enclosed space…." She trailed off making a face. "I don't get what you have against it anyway."

"Kid, I've spent most of my existence getting everywhere on my own two feet, people are not supposed to move that fast."

"I'll make sure dad lets you stick your head out the window - ATTACHED," she added quickly as he moved to take his head off. She threw her suitcase in the trunk.

"Alright," Charles said as they were both in, "buckle up, and we'll get going."

"Uh, Chuck, hate to break it to you but I don't exactly need-" Beetlejuice started before Charles interrupted.

"Lawrence, if we get pulled over, I am not explaining that 'oh yes he's not wearing a seatbelt because he's actually an ancient demon my daughter summoned in a fit of desperation due to my own emotional neglect of her and then he somehow became a part of our lives and family even after we had to kill him to get rid of him.’"

"Aw, you do care!" the demon replied sarcastically, but obeyed anyway.

"Hey, give me the aux cord, so we don't have to deal with finding the radio," Lydia said before that conversation could go any further, holding out her hand.

Charles sighed. "Lydia, my darling daughter, my favorite child, we are not going to listen to the Scary Bitches and Zombina for 8 hours."

"Give it to me!" Beetlejuice said, pulling back into the car.

"You have a music player?" Delia asked.

"That Jobs guy is dead, isn't he?"

Lydia narrowed her eyes at him. "You took it from stuff Adam and Barbara were cleaning out, didn't you?"

"Just hand it over, I have some great rock." Delia handed it back to him, if only out of curiosity. Immediately the sounds of a quarry rang out through the speakers. He could hardly contain his smile at everyone's groans.

"Fine, fine, how about a little Panic At The Disco?"

"My Chemical Romance is better and you know i-" Lydia's sentence was cut off by shrill shrieks of terror undercut by a muffled rendition of ABBA's hit _Waterloo_. He was literally glowing with pride at his own puns.

"Really Lydia? What happened to this being the sweetest noise around?" He pitched into singing at the last part.

"I'm going to stab you again," Lydia was glowering at him, but her amusement was visible.

"You make that threat so often yet never go through with it."

"If there is not real music playing in the next 30 seconds it's Delia's choice," Charles said over a particularly loud scream.

~~~

Charles pulled the car into a parking spot by the small town's welcome center. "Well, we're only two hours away, I think it's high time for a break."

Beetlejuice scrambled out of the car, phasing out the door without bothering to even unbuckle. "Don't be so dramatic!" Lydia called after him, getting out the normal way, cradling her camera. "Where are we anyway?"

"Maine," Charles said plainly, eyes betraying his amusement at his dad joke, and Lydia rolled her eyes.

"Delia?"

"I think I saw a sign saying Derry a little bit ago," she replied, stretching.

"Why don't you two go walk around for a little, and we'll meet back up when we see the sun start setting?" Charles suggested.

"The woods we just passed through did look promising," Lydia said, rubbing her hands together.

Charles sighed. "Just stay out of trouble!" he called after them.

"No promises!" Lydia called back.

~~~

"Spooky tunnel!" Lydia said, from up ahead. He clambered through the underbrush faster, catching up as she snapped a couple pictures.

"Ooooh, spooky tunnel," he repeated, once he caught up to her, smiling widely. "We're going in, right?"

"Oh, I dunno--OF COURSE we're going in, come on," she said, ducking in.

He followed her closely, occasionally pointing out obstacles she couldn't see. The narrow tunnel eventually opened into a large room filled with trash. Lydia's eyes lit up with excitement and she slid carefully down into the room, Beetlejuice floating down after. 

She looked around in the junk, kicking aside things to look at what was underneath occasionally. Eventually, she found an old jack-in-the-box, picking it up and winding it slowly. The music was strangely distorted.

A red balloon floated into Lydia's view. And another, and another. They rained down from the ceiling, hundreds of them. She stopped winding it. "Beej, what're you doing?"

"That's. Not me," he said, looking up, puzzled. Lydia prodded at one, curiously. It exploded, splattering her with blood.

"Oh, ew!" she exclaimed, recoiling. The rest exploded upon hitting the floor, coating the ground in a fine layer and leaving the air iron-scented. They looked around and now, in the center of the room, there was a stage.

The jack-in-the-box started of its own violation, and she dropped it, backing away gingerly through the trash. He moved to be next to her, and they watched the toy nonchalantly. Neither flinched when it popped open, or when the stage lit up with orange light.

"Come one, come all, you'll laugh you'll cry, you'll scream, you'll die!" A high pitched voice came from seemingly everywhere, reverberating off the tunnels and seeming to glitch on the word die, word repeating over and over until it was lost in a cacophony of echoes.

It quieted for a second, and then---

"Pennywise the Dancing Clown!"

The stage opened like some horrible flower, all sickly orange glow, and on the stage was a clown. It did a strange jig, balloons tied to its wrists bouncing in the air, and Lydia and Beetlejuice looked from the clown to each other, puzzled.

"Um, okay," Lydia said over the music. "Let's go." She started walking towards the tunnel they came in from, but the clown jumped in front of her with unnatural speed.

It smiled at her, all rotting needle-sharp teeth. "Aw, you don't want to stay and watch the show? How about a balloon?" It waved one of the ones attached to its wrists in front of her face.

Keeping eyes locked with the monster's glowing orange ones, she slowly took a safety pin off her jacket and stabbed the balloon it waved in her face, barely blinking as it exploded and showered her with blood again. Its face dropped, and she put the pin back.

"It's rude to wake someone up just to leave," the clown taunted.

"Yeah well, it's rude to coat strangers in blood. C'mon, we--" she started walking away, but the floor gave way underneath one of her steps. 

Beetlejuice, wide eyed, jumped into the hole after her, not even noticing the clown fading into the darkness. He was relieved to see her about fifteen feet down, clinging to an old ladder. 

"I'm going down," she said, once she finished catching her breath.

"You sure that's a good idea? I don't really know what that thing is." He seemed wary.

"You try climbing _up_ a ladder in platforms, there's gotta be a way out going down. It's not like it's actually a threat anyway. I mean, you know the deal with monster clowns."

"They're all teeth and fangs until you make their nose honk, yeah yeah."

Lydia pulled her sleeves over her palms with her teeth, gripping the outside of the ladder and sliding down a little to fast for comfort. She landed soundly, though, and her eyes lit up upon seeing the glassy crater in the foggy sunshine. She took the cover off her camera, adjusting the f-stop for the low light.

"See, I told you going down was a good idea, look at how cool this is!" She knelt down, snapping a couple shots. "I've never seen anything like this."

Beetlejuice followed her, casually keeping an eye out for the clown thing. He didn't think it was quite dangerous, at least not for the two of them, but he couldn't tell what the damned thing was. It definitely wasn't a demon, and whatever was behind that glamour it was putting up was too spider-like for it to be fae. Besides, fae didn't even exist on this side of the Atlantic, as far as he knew. He wasn't using Lydia's name, and she never used his unless she was summoning him, so even if it was he didn't have to worry too much about the whole name stealing thing.

Lydia, meanwhile, was carefully sliding down the wall of the crater, stopping at a ledge occasionally to snap a picture, completely unbothered. "You're quiet," she noted.

"I'm thinking," he replied

"Oh no," she said flatly, "someone save us."

"Hey!" he said, offended.

"Every time you've decided I need to see your innards, your brain has been full of maggots. I think I have a right to be worried."

"They have names, y'know. And anyway, I don't know what that thing is."

She looked up from her camera.

"Not just a run-of-the-mill monster clown?" 

"Nah, it's got something psychic going on."

"It goes both ways, with that then. We'll figure it out if it keeps bothering us." As Lydia finished her sentence, the devil of which they were speaking popped up in front of her. She looked from the clown to Beetlejuice and back. 

"Jumpscares? Really?"

"I haven't been able to get you with a jumpscares since," the demon thought for a second, "since the February incident, actually."

"I know, it's like, Six Nights at Sammy's is how old now?" Lydia said. “Way past prevalence, that’s for sure.”

"I thought you didn't play video games?" Beetlejuice asked. 

"Mom did, I liked to watch--"

The clown, who seemed smaller than before, unhinged its jaw and screeched for attention.

"You're being very rude," Lydia said, cocking an eyebrow at it.

"I- this is my home, you're being...no, no," it said, indignant. Then in a singsong voice, with sickening smile, "at least I know your secret."

"My secret? I can't think of any. Beej?"

He rubbed his beard thoughtfully. "Oh! Maybe it's you still sleeping with your big bird toy?"

"Hey! I told you that in confidence!"

“I thought you meant that you were _confident_ about still sleeping with your Big Bird toy.”

The clown stomped its foot. "No! No! You're not a real girl!"

The air grew still and tense as they digested what it had just said. Beetlejuice turned to Lydia, concern and confusion etched into his face.

“Scarecrow,” he said softly, “what is it talking about?”

Lydia, blood still dripping from her hair, squeezed her eyes shut and let out a shaking gasp; Pennywise clapped with delight at the sight of her dam breaking. She clenched her fists.

“I-I’m trans,” she whispered, as though afraid of rejection. “I’m trans. I…”

“Shh, hey.” Beetlejuice stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder, looking up to meet her eyes. “It’s okay. It’s--”

He couldn’t make it past that without his concerned frown twitching, the rest of whatever he’d been about to say fading into wheezing laughter. Lydia opened her eyes and pouted, stomping her foot.

“Oh come _on,_ you couldn’t at least get to the ‘why didn’t you tell me’ spiel?” She shoved at his shoulder angrily. “This is why _I’m_ the one who tells Delia we only bought one pack of Oreos. You’re like, the shittiest actor. Juilliard my ass.” And then they both burst into laughter, hanging off each other as Pennywise stared on in confusion.

"It-" Lydia wheezed, "the clown- it- Beej, Beej, the clown's a transphobe!" She howled.

Beetlejuice wiped a tear from his eye, leaning back. "Wait, wait, scarecrow, watch." He pulled his arms up and his eyes lolled to opposite sides. "Ohoho look at me, I'm a sewer clown! Watch out! I have balloons! For my next trick I'm gonna say a slur!"

Lydia snorted, putting her hands on her cheeks, smushing her face, faux-fainting into Beetlejuice's waiting arms. In a high pitched singsong voice she said, "Oh no, I'm soooooo scared, how will I ever deal!" Then she rolled her eyes, crossing her arms and staring at the slowly shrinking monster. "Like I didn't already go through that in kindergarten."

Desperate and shrinking, it ran at her, grabbing her by the arms and peeling back its face, terrible orange light beaming from its mouth. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she went slack for a tense second, nose bleeding. 

That is, until she managed to speak. "That's it?"

Puzzled, it dropped her, skittering back, and she hung in the air for a second before Beetlejuice pulled her down so she was back on the floor, rolling his eyes. "C'mon scarecrow, wake up," the demon said, exasperated. She shook her head and when she opened her eyes again, it was like she had never seen the Deadlights at all. It looked absolutely devastated.

At the clown’s expression, Lydia sniffed and wiped her nose, doing more harm than good when her blood-soaked and rust covered sleeve just smeared the mess more. “No, no, it was good,” she assured it, as though consoling a child that didn’t win the blue ribbon. 

"You're just saying that," the clown sulked.

“You’re right, I’ve seen better,” she mused out loud. “BJ’s are at least _colorful_. In fact,” she added, turning to Beetlejuice, “I think I’ve seen yours enough to be like, vaccinated. Is that a thing?”

“Vaccinations are important,” Beetlejuice confirmed with a solemn nod. “And anyway, don't be nice to it. It just tried to eat you, and it's transphobic." He crossed his arms and reclined on thin air.

"Oh, that's what all those kids were?" She said, looking the clown with newfound disgust. "You eat kids?"

"Their fear tastes better," it said, almost ashamed under her gaze.

"Gross," she said, fiddling with her flash bulb before snapping a picture centered on the clown. Bad artistry, but she felt like getting an eyeful of flash would get it to back off some. She was right, and it scrambled further down into the crater.

"Other than the dead kids, I saw some stuff when it was trying to eat me. I think we should probably knock it down a few more pegs," Lydia said, leaning over the ledge.

"Normally I'd complain about having to do something objectively good but yeah, you're right," he replied as she jumped into sliding down towards the center of the crater.

"Hey clown!" Lydia called out, staring in wonder at material glass sculptures despite using her best creepy little girl in a horror movie voice, "We're not done with you!"

"Oh you've been practicing that?" Beetlejuice asked her, "I'm so proud!"

"Yeah, I think it still needs some work, but I'm getting there! Taking some inspiration from the way the ghosts in Ju-On do the growly thing?"

"Very good, if anything I'd say you could use some of the energy the girl from Midsommar had?" he suggested.

"Nah, I don't think that really works without the whole Swedish cult vibes, don't really like the whole crying thing," she replied, then, "Oh, there you are."

Pennywise froze where it was walking, looking at them with a look of something like fear.

"Nothing to say?" Beetlejuice asked.

"Just leave me alone i-"

"Yeah no, left that option by calling me, and I quote, 'not a real girl,' sorry not sorry, clown." It shrunk more, now just barely taller than Beetlejuice.

"Hold the phone, the _clown_ is insecure about being a _clown?"_ The demon asked, finally noticing the shrinking. The clown moaned pathetically. "You're a shapeshifter and you choose something you're insecure about?"

"Ooh, that's really pathetic," Lydia noted with something like pity.

"I just wanted some breakfaaaassssstttttttt," it whimpered, deflating into something puddle-like.

"So should we finish it off?" Beetlejuice asked as Lydia nudged the infant sized monster with her shoe. It whined pitifully, and she pulled her lip back in disgust.

"Nah," she said, as nonchalantly as if he just asked if she had checked the weather. "Too merciful, I think. I have another idea." She lifted her foot to kick it, and it winced away, and decided against it. Instead she grabbed it, picking it up by its neck ruff, smiling. “You gotta stop flashing people like that if you already know it’s gonna give them _magic visions,_ you fucking idiot.”

~~~

Mike Hanlon, had, up until now, had been enjoying his lunch break from the library on a lovely, if slightly chilly, day. That was, until he looked up to see a tall, gothy girl and a green haired man in a striped suit, both soaked in blood, crawling out of a storm drain. The girl carried a grey mass in her hands, and when she saw him her eyes lit up.

She walked up to him and dropped the grey mass into his lap, so very much like a cat with a "present", as he pressed himself into the bench. "There's your clown problem, should be easy enough to fix," she said, and the pair of them walked away towards the rest area.

Mike stared at what she dropped in his lap, and sure enough, staring up at him was the face of the clown from his childhood. He looked from the rapidly-shrinking figures of the two strangers to the infant-sized clown and back again, then as if on autopilot, reached into its crumbling chest. With a squelch, he pulled out its heart, staring at it for a second in wonder before crushing it in his hand.

The monster crumbled to dust.

A moment later, Mike's phone started to ring. Still dazed, he clicked _accept_ without looking and lifted the phone slowly to his face.

“ _So, funny thing,_ ” said the voice of acclaimed comedian Richie Tozier. “ _There I am, taking a dump, reading the latest_ Reacher, _and suddenly I’m accosted by the traumatic memories of the child-eating murder clown that I had somehow forgotten? And also I guess I’m gay? So like, what’s up?_ ”

  
  


~~~

"What were you two doing?" Charles asked, upon returning to the parking lot and seeing his daughter half covered in dried blood and mud, sitting on top of the car swinging her legs, the demon next to her in a similar state.

"Bullying a cosmic horror," Lydia said plainly. "Still have the baby wipes in the glovebox? None of the stores would let us in to clean up."

"Just because we 'don't know whose blood it is,'" Beetlejuice added, exaggerating the air quotes. Charles gulped.

"How. How do you not know where the blood's from?"

"Well, I mean, some of it's mine - got a killer nosebleed - but otherwise apparently water balloons filled with blood are in vogue for horror now." Lydia rolled her eyes, taking the wipes here father offered.

**Author's Note:**

> Beej doesn't like Princess because he was chilling one day and she came and sat on his lap, looked him dead in the eyes and said "no one will ever believe you" and has not spoken since
> 
> the maggots are named maggie, wormsworth, magnus, magnolia, margaret, marguerite, and betelgeuse jr


End file.
